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Cyclamen persicum
Also called Common Cyclamen, Cyclamen, Persian Cyclamen, Tangara Rastrojera
Florist's cyclamen is a tuber-forming perennial from the eastern Mediterranean, sold as a flowering pot plant for winter and Valentine's Day. Its key to success is cool, bright conditions and careful watering from below, since it dislikes wet crowns and warm dry air.
Cyclamen persicum, the Persian cyclamen, is a species of flowering herbaceous perennial plant growing from a tuber, native to rocky hillsides, shrubland, and woodland up to 1,200 m (3,900 ft) above sea level, from south-central Turkey to the Levant. Cultivars of this species are the commonly seen florist's cyclamen. Due to their native habitat (North Africa and the eastern part of the Mediterranean,) the flower thrives best in a climate and temperatures common in this region: summers which are hot and dry and winters which are wet and cool. In spite of their name, which means "from Persia," they are not actually from Persia.
The natural range of C. persicum extends from North Africa across Southeast Europe to West Asia. In particular, the following occurrences are documented: In North Africa, the species is represented in the northern and eastern parts of Algeria and in northern Tunisia. In Western Asia, stocks were confirmed in Cyprus, Lebanon, the Palestine region, western Syria and western Turkey.
This species probably arrived in Paris before its first mention in 1620. Certainly, it has been cultivated since 1731 in France. The start of the variety breeding is dated to the 1860s, starting from England. The different varieties of it were created exclusively by breeding with variants of the wild species. An introgression of other species has not occurred.
Cyclamen cilicium · Eastern sowbread · Sowbread · Cyclamen mirabile · Cyclamen pseudibericum · European Cyclamen · Spring Sowbread · Sowbread
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cyclamen persicum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
